


Love in a Time of Fear

by DKNC



Category: Old Kingdom - Garth Nix
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-08-25
Updated: 2014-08-25
Packaged: 2018-02-14 16:19:52
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,621
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2198541
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/DKNC/pseuds/DKNC
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>This fic was written for Day 1 of Abhorsen Week with the prompt "Fear."</p><p>The story takes place after the end of the first novel in the trilogy (Sabriel) as Sabriel and Touchstone try to figure out how to be Abhorsen and King for a broken and still very dangerous Old Kingdom, and Sabriel struggles to understand how what she feels for Touchstone possibly fits into that.</p><p>Of course, the Old Kingdom trilogy and all its characters are the exclusive property of Garth Nix, and I own nothing of it. :)</p>
            </blockquote>





	Love in a Time of Fear

Sabriel smiled as the Paperwing began its descent toward the West Yard on Palace Hill. She could see the palace clearly below her with more workmen than she could begin to count laboring away at its reconstruction. She was rather stunned to see how much had been accomplished in her absence. While the royal residence was nowhere near completion, it was a far cry from the ruined shell of burnt timbers and fallen stones which Sabriel had seen when she’d first beheld Palace Hill in what seemed another lifetime although it had only been a matter of months.

She whistled softly, coaxing the Paperwing to circle the palace before landing in the West Yard so that she could see the new construction more clearly. The basic structure of the Great Hall had been largely completed before she left, and now she saw that two stories--no three--had been built atop it in addition to the newer structures added alongside it. While the progress made her happy for she knew it would please Touchstone, it also caused her a pang of sadness and guilt to see such visible evidence of how long she had been gone from Belisaere.

“I had to go,” she said softly to herself. “I am Abhorsen.”

Over six months had passed since she had opened her eyes to Touchstone’s face amid the death and debris at Wyverly College and realized with some surprise that she was alive. She hadn’t been well enough to cross the Wall back into the Old Kingdom for a month after that, and there had been much to do in Ancelstierre in any event. There were visits from countless officials demanding explanations that most of them chose not to believe, and Kerrigor’s newly bound form to be imprisoned as best as she and Touchstone could manage in their weakened states until they could get it back into the Old Kingdom. That task had at least been made easier by the fact that neither the black cat remnant of Kerrigor nor the familiar white cat form of Mogget had awakened since Ranna had bound them and apparently sent them into deep slumber. Finally there were the fallen to lay to rest and mourn. Far too many had been lost. Sabriel would not soon forget the sad eyes of Colonel Horyse’s daughter who’d come north for the memorial service or the silent accusation in the eyes of Ellimere’s parents whenever they’d looked at her. Touchstone said she’d imagined that, but she didn’t believe him.

There’d been the nightmares as well--the sound of Astarael’s mournful tone, heartshattering images of her father being swept into the current of Death, Kerrigor’s hideous mouth drawing toward hers for a kiss, Touchstone lying helpless as Kerrigor loomed over him with a long jagged splinter. She’d awakened screaming more than once in the little room where they’d put her in one of the undamaged spaces of the school. Touchstone had come to her from his own room when he’d heard her, hobbling on the leg that would take time to heal in spite of the Charter Magic, holding her in his arms, whispering soothing words, and chasing away the memory of Kerrigor’s hideous mouth by pressing his own lips to hers. And she’d let him. She’d felt empty and small and almost lost in the aftermath of all that had happened. She’d needed him to hold her there, anchored to life. And he never once let her down.

When they did cross the Wall, returning to the Old Kingdom and all that meant, they had been met by two of the Clayr immediately for the Clayr had seen them crossing that day. They told Touchstone that they had sent word throughout the kingdom that Kerrigor had been defeated and that a true prince of the royal bloodline had returned to be King. They’d asked Sabriel, as Abhorsen, to send out a similar proclamation. They had already reached out to nobles they felt worthy to begin reclaiming Belisaere in Touchstone’s name, although any meaningful efforts were restricted to the central valley as long as large numbers of dead remained everywhere among the hills.

Wearily, Touchstone had accepted their words. He had no choice but to be King if the Old Kingdom were to prosper again or even to survive. Two centuries without a king or queen had plunged it into a dark place, and it would require time, strong leadership, and powerful Charter Magic to gradually pull it back into the light. He would go to Belisaere with all possible haste, he’d told the Clayr, but first he would travel to Abhorsen’s House with Sabriel. He had decreed emphatically that Kerrigor must be permanently bound before anything else could be done, and Sabriel had thought he looked every inch a King as he’d said it.

So the two of them had flown a Paperwing to Abhorsen’s House and bound the sleeping Kerrigor in the deepest cellar using every Mark of ward and guard the two of them had ever learned. When it was done, they had fallen exhausted into each other’s arms, and Touchstone had told her once again that he loved her, and once again she had stopped just short of saying the same to him. She’d known fear often enough, deep and terrible fear of any number of dreadful things, but the fear that shook her when she looked too closely at what she felt for Touchstone was something entirely different. So she tried not to look too closely.

They’d nearly made love that night in spite of her fears. She’d felt that emptiness and weariness and sought the strength of his arms, returning his kisses eagerly enough even when she refused to return his declaration of love. He had been the one to stop them, and she’d thought then that his sense of honor and propriety wouldn’t allow him to have her unless he knew her heart was truly in it. Even as she’d lamented the loss of his arms around her, she’d been grateful to him and thought that she certainly would love him if only they were free--if he were not King, and she not Abhorsen.

The next day they’d traveled on together to Belisaere--Touchstone to begin his reign in spite of confessing to her that he hadn’t the slightest idea of how to begin, and Sabriel to begin the task of ridding Belisaere of the Dead.

She thought, of the two of them, her task was the easier. While the Dead of Belisaere were more numerous than anywhere else she had ever known, most were pitiful beings, starved and desperate for life and without much individual power at all. Kerrigor’s strongest minions there had been taken into Death with her father by Astarael’s command, and these spirits had nowhere near the strength of those the Dead Adept had led when he’d crossed the Wall into Ancelstierre. She’d banished all the Dead from the Palace Hill in short order so that construction on the Royal Palace could begin in earnest, and then she’d turned her attention toward the other hills.

Touchstone, in the mean time, had spent his days speaking to masses of people assembled in the market by the docks and meeting with various noblemen. More and more vessels sailed into Belisaere, and one of Touchstone’s first projects had been organizing the repair of the boom-chain across the Belis Mouth and the rebuilding of the Wind Post and Boom Hook towers so that the harbor could be both accessible to larger ships and properly defensible against unwanted vessels such as pirates. His ancestry was questioned quietly by some and loudly by others, but it was doubted on some level by most, regardless of what the Clayr and Abhorsen had proclaimed about him. The fact that he openly admitted his status as a bastard son of the last queen rather than a trueborn prince did little to assuage people’s doubts.

His obvious knack for leadership and his undeniably powerful Charter Magic did far more. Once Sabriel had declared the Palace Hill free of the dead, he’d immediately announced plans to rebuild the Royal Palace, asking noblemen and town leaders from far and wide to send laborers and had also announced his own intent to repair the two Great Charter Stones which had been broken by his half-brother with the blood of his murdered half-sisters two centuries before. 

That had stunned Sabriel. He hadn’t spoken to her of his plan before he announced it. To be fair, they’d spent almost no time together in those days for all they’d both been staying once again in the Sign of the Three Lemons which Touchstone had taken as his temporary residence until enough of the Royal Palace was rebuilt for habitation. Their days had been so filled with their individual tasks that they’d seen each other only in the evenings, and not even every evening. before retiring to their separate rooms. The nights of falling asleep with his arms around her to keep the nightmares at bay had come to a halt upon reaching Belisaere. Here in his fledgling court, Touchstone had proven quite determined to keep their relationship above any hint of salacious whispers, and Sabriel had been reminded of his behavior so long ago at the village of Nestowe when he’d insisted upon acting as her sworn swordsman rather than invite any assumption that they were illicit lovers.

“Can you repair them?” she’d asked him bluntly the night he’d made that startling pronouncement about the Stones. “Do you even know how?” They’d been standing in his room.

“I have to repair them, Sabriel. The Charter is corrupted as long as they remain as they are. Nothing we do can succeed for very long unless that corruption is ended.” He’d seemed so tired and so very much older than her as he spoke those words, and she’d realized that the confident man who spoke so boldly of the future of the Old Kingdom to nobles and beggars alike, who held her and lent her his strength when she faltered, was as terrified as she was. He remained as uncertain of his ability to do this as when he’d first told her he didn’t know how to be King.

“You’ll figure it out,” she’d said softly. “I know you will.”

He’d smiled at her then, his grey eyes lightening a bit at her words. “I’m glad one of us is certain.”

“Oh, I’m very certain about you,” she’d assured him, and he’d come to put his arms around her.

“You know I love you, Sabriel,” he’d said softly.

She hadn’t answered him, putting her lips to his and kissing him instead. They’d kissed longer than they had since leaving Abhorsen’s House, and Sabriel had felt warmth rising up throughout her entire body as his arms tightened around her. That warmth had become an intense heat as he pressed her against him, and she was shocked by the realization of his arousal. She could feel his hardness pressing against her through the fabric of his breeches and hers. She’d gasped involuntarily, and he had immediately pulled his arms from around her and stepped back.

“You had better go now, Sabriel,” he’d said, his breathing sounding ragged. 

“What if I don’t want to?” she’d asked him more boldly than she felt. She’d been terrified of her own words, terrified of words she couldn’t bring herself to say, but still she didn’t want to leave him and go to her room alone.

“It isn’t a matter of what we want right now,” he’d said, meeting her eyes carefully. “It’s a matter of what we want for tomorrow, and the next day, and all the days after that.”

She’d wanted to hit him. She didn’t want to think about any of that. “It doesn’t matter what we want then,” she’d protested. “I will be Abhorsen and you will be King.”

He’d looked at her sadly then, and after a moment said simply, “Good night, Sabriel.”

She’d left his room, uncertain if she was angry at him or herself. 

They’d kissed again during the next several weeks as she’d completed the task of ridding all Belisaere and the surrounding areas of Dead, and he’d successfully overseen construction projects, mostly successfully handled diplomatic issues, and far less successfully attempted to repair the Great Charter Stones in the Reservoir. They couldn’t keep from kissing, it seemed, on the rare occasions when they found themselves alone too long, but they were careful not to allow that to happen very often. They both had too many responsibilities to allow themselves to become distracted.

Finally, the lands around the capital had been cleared, and Sabriel had to turn her attention elsewhere. Nestowe would be first, she’d decided. She had promised the Elder, after all. So, in the middle of spring, she had left Belisaere and gone to free Nestowe from the Dead. From there she’d gone other places. She couldn’t banish every dead thing alone. She often needed help from Charter Mages. She also realized how much she still didn’t know about her own powers and about Death in general. So, she had gone to Abhorsen’s House once more to spend time studying her father’s books and the books and writings of Abhorsens before him. And, of course, to read again and again the Book of the Dead.

Touchstone had written her, and she had replied to his letters. They kept each other updated on their activities, their successes and failures, hopes and fears. He had never asked specifically when she was coming back to Belisaere, and she had never told him. But one morning, she’d awakened and felt that she simply couldn’t keep going any longer without seeing his face and so had made the decision to fly to the capital.

 _Months,_ she thought. _I’ve been gone more than two months. Will he be angry with me? He knows what I’ve been doing. Surely, he understands that._ She wondered if he knew how much she’d missed him, and she wondered if he missed her. He’d told her he loved her. Surely, he missed her. 

The Paperwing gave a sudden lurch, and Sabriel realized it was in response to her own unruly emotions. She had no right to wonder if Touchstone missed her. She’d never promised him anything. She’d never even told him she loved him. _I think I might love you, too._ That’s all she had ever given him. And what difference did it make, anyway, when their paths were already laid out before them? Still she knew she had come here as much as Sabriel to see Touchstone as Abhorsen to meet with the King. More so, if she was honest with herself.

She whistled in a soothing tone, seeking to calm herself as much as the Paperwing, and the craft began its graceful descent into the West Yard. When it had settled lightly on the ground, she stretched herself and climbed out, carefully retrieving her bell bandolier and sword. By the time she straightened and stood facing in the direction of the palace, she saw two men coming to greet her in the uniform of Touchstone’s Royal Guard.

They both bowed when they reached her. “Abhorsen,” said one of them upon rising. “The King requests that you attend him in his solar.”

 _His solar?_ Sabriel raised her brows. Apparently, the palace was completed enough for Touchstone to have living or at least working space in it now. “Lead the way,” she said, nodding to the man.

As she walked across the yard flanked by the two guards, another man came from the palace and approached her at nearly a run. Sabriel smiled widely as she recognized him.

“Edrin,” she said warmly as the older man reached her, grasping his hands in hers before he could do something foolish like bow.

“Abhorsen,” he greeted her formally, but his blue eyes were warm as was the smile on his weathered face. “The King would have come down to welcome you himself, but he only just returned from the Reservoir and was hardly in a state to receive visitors. He asked that I show you a bit of what’s been accomplished in your absence and then escort you to the solar while he makes himself presentable.”

“Touchstone? Worried about being presentable for me? He knows what I look like after several hours in a Paperwing!” She laughed at the notion. Edrin joined her laughter in spite of his attempt to remain formal, and she found it immensely pleasant to laugh with another person again. She’d been too long alone with only the sendings for company in Abhorsen’s House.

“I have missed you, Sabriel,” the older man said, and she found it equally pleasant to hear her name. Few other than Touchstone ever used it now, and no one had called her other than Abhorsen since she’d left Belisaere.

“I have missed you as well.”

“Ah, but not as much as you have missed the King, I imagine, for I know how he has missed you.”

Sabriel chose not to respond to that. Edrin had been among the first to welcome Touchstone and herself when they’d come to Belisaere after Kerrigor’s defeat. The old man was a Charter Mage of no little skill and had achieved a certain status in the city during the dark times. He could be quite ruthless, a necessary quality for any man who held power in a city so besieged on all sides by the dead, but he was essentially honest and genuinely interested in seeing a rightful ruler restored. He’d been skeptical of Touchstone initially, but had come to believe in him very quickly and had proven himself a loyal and capable assistant. He’d also assisted Sabriel on more than one occasion when she’d been banishing the Dead from Belisaere. Weary of all the formality surrounding her everywhere, she’d asked the man to call her by her name. At times, like now, she regretted extending that much familiarity to him for he sometimes said more than he should about matters that did not concern him.

“Does he make progress with the Stones?” she asked after a few steps taken in silence.

An odd expression crossed Edrin’s face then. “He believes he does now,” he said softly. He smiled then, almost too suddenly. “Come,” he said too brightly, confirming to Sabriel that he wished to leave the subject of Touchstone and the Great Charter Stones, “Let me show you the Great Hall. It’s been finished quite splendidly since you were last here.”

A short time later, Sabriel stood in a comfortably furnished room with a single long window overlooking the city below. The Great Hall had indeed been impressive as had the several other finished areas Edrin had led her through. This room, however, was her favorite. This room obviously belonged to Touchstone, and she could feel him here. “I thought he might want to look at the sea,” she said absently as she stood at the window watching the men still working outside.

“His bedchamber overlooks the Sea of Saere,” Edrin replied. “But a King must also look to his people.”

Sabriel smiled and turned back to look at Edrin. “Touchstone said that, didn’t he?”

“He did.” The older man returned her smile. “He envisions this room as a private place, not one for business. A room for reflection and . . .relaxation.”

“Well, it’s certainly large enough for one man to relax in,” Sabriel said, looking about the room once more.

Edrin chuckled. “The King does not intend to be alone always, Sabriel. A king must have a queen and children in order that the bloodline continues. This would be a pleasant room for a man to pass an evening with his family.”

Sabriel scowled and turned back toward the window. She didn’t wish to discuss Touchstone’s future family.

“The Abhorsen’s line must continue as well,” Edrin said pointedly.

At that, Sabriel whirled around at him. “Mind your tongue, Edrin,” she snapped. “I assure you the King and I are both well aware of our . . .responsibilities. It is not your place to remind us.”

“Forgive me, Abhorsen,” Edrin said with exaggerated courtesy. “Shall I leave you now? I am certain the King will be along any moment.”

“Fine,” Sabriel said shortly, her mood darkened by the image of Touchstone in this room with some pretty young woman on his arm, both of them in crowns as they looked down on Belisaere below.

“Several of the nobles who came to visit during your absence brought their daughters with them, Abhorsen,” Edrin said pointedly. “In order to formally introduce them to the King.”

“I thought you were leaving,” Sabriel said between gritted teeth. She had no desire to hear any of this. She shouldn’t have come here.

“I am,” the man said, sounding terribly amused with himself. “He barely looked at any of those poor girls. They all went away terribly disappointed.”

Before Sabriel could formulate a response to that, Edrin bowed to her and left the solar, still with that infuriating half smile on his face.

Sabriel turned back to the window and looked down at the city, angry at the tears that sprang to her eyes. Of course, Touchstone must take a queen. Of course, he must have children. She knew that. Just as she knew that someday she must have a babe of her own, although how she was to be anyone’s mother when her life was to be spent constantly traveling to do battle with the Dead, she couldn’t imagine. Truthfully, she couldn’t imagine having anyone’s babe other than Touchstone’s. She’d imagined having his child, although she’d scarcely admit that to herself, much less to anyone else, just as she’d imagined lying with him. She’d imagined sex in an abstract sort of way back in school, giggling with Ellimere and Sulyn and the other girls in her year. Some of her classmates had even had sex or at least claimed they had. But Sabriel had never truly thought about it in any specific way until she’d met Touchstone. Until she’d kissed Touchstone.

“Stop it!” she said out loud, running her hand lightly over the handles of the bells in her bandolier to remind herself who she was. What her life must be. “I am Abhorsen,” she said. _Does the walker choose the path, or the path the walker?_ She knew the answer to that question, and it was past time that she and Touchstone both acknowledged it.

“You’re really here.”

His voice filled her ears and her mind, and she turned at the sound of it. He stood in the doorway, dark curls still damp from the bath he’d obviously taken, and he was dressed in a fresh shirt and leggings. Sabriel felt suddenly very dirty and disheveled in the clothes she’d worn since early that morning with her black hair windblown and tangled from the Paperwing flight. “I’m here,” she said softly.

“I’ve missed you, Sabriel,” Touchstone said, walking toward her.

“I . . .the palace is beautiful, Touchstone. It’s going to be truly magnificent.”

He smiled at her, standing right in front of her, but seeming hesitant to touch her without permission. “I’d hoped you’d like it. This room is one of my favorites. And the bedchamber. I’ll show you the view from there in the morning. The sunrise over the sea is truly beautiful.”

She didn’t need to be thinking about sunrises in his bedchamber. Her knees already felt like liquid, and she wanted nothing more than to throw her arms around him and kiss him. “You look good,” she said after a moment, “But tired. Are you still going down to the Reservoir every day?”

He nodded. “I’ve realized something important, and I think I can repair them now, but it isn’t easy. It isn’t easy at all.” 

“Do you want to tell me about it?”

He shook his head. “Not now.” He looked at her, mild apprehension in his grey eyes. “Sabriel? Are you all right?”

“I’m tired after my flight. But I’m fine. I learned a lot while I was gone.”

“Did you ever wake up your cat?” Touchstone asked, frowning.

“Mogget isn’t actually mine,” she said, laughing at his expression in spite of her troubling emotions. “And you know he isn’t actually a cat. And no. He didn’t wake up. I tried. I have so many things I’d like to ask him.”

“I’d just as soon he sleep as long as Kerrigor,” Touchstone said vehemently.

“Touchstone! You know we likely wouldn’t have defeated Kerrigor without Mogget! He . . .”

“He was so bent on killing you that he wouldn’t allow Rogir the pleasure!” Touchstone spat out. “However that worked out for us, you can’t expect me to love the creature for it! I can’t stand the thought of that malevolent force anywhere around you, Sabriel!” Touchstone’s voice actually shook with emotion and he put his hands on either side of her face.

“Touchstone,” she said softly.

Then his lips were on hers, and he was kissing her, and she wasn’t stopping him. She wanted his kisses as much as she ever had, and all her resolve vanished as she let herself be carried away by the sight and sound and scent and feel of him. As one of his hands moved over her face and onto the back of her neck, however, she felt something different than the calluses she was accustomed to on his palms and fingers, and she reached up to grab it, pulling her lips from his as she stepped back to look down at his palm.

“Touchstone! You’ve cut yourself!” she exclaimed looking at it. “What happened?”

A very odd expression crossed his face then, and it frightened her. Suspicious, she grasped his other hand and turned it palm up as well. It bore a matching red cut, running from the base of the fifth finger to the ball of his thumb, barely closed up. “These are not accidental,” she said darkly. “What is this, Touchstone?”

He sighed heavily. “Come and sit down,” he told her, and he led her to a long cushioned bench where they could sit side by side. “I told you I had realized something about the Great Charter Stones,” he said when she was seated beside him, still holding his hands. “They were broken by blood. Royal blood. And that is what is required to mend them.”

Sabriel’s heart fell to the floor. “No!” she gasped. “Blood magic is an evil thing. You cannot do this, Touchstone!”

He shook his head. “Listen to me. Life taken. Blood taken . . .against a person’s will . . .that is evil, and it can only corrupt the Charter and open the path to Death. That is true.”

She nodded. She knew this. They both knew this, so why would he . . .”

“But blood given,” he continued. “Blood freely given . . .without any taking of life, that is different, Sabriel. That can heal the Stones. And it must be my blood. Royal blood broke them and royal blood can mend them.”

She was quiet for a moment then because there was some sense in what he said. But she didn’t like it. Such magic would still be dangerous, especially surrounded by the corruption of the broken Stones. “It’s too dangerous,” she whispered. “How can you know the right spells?”

“I can’t,” he admitted. “Not really. But I can tell when I get something right. The Stones want to be mended, Sabriel. I can feel that. I simply have to keep trying until I hit upon precisely the right spells. They will come to me, I know it.” There was an excitement in his voice, a kind of confidence that reassured her somewhat, but also worried her. He would never give up, whether the Stones could be mended or not.

“My blood would work as well, would it not?” she asked. “Royal or Abhorsen or Clayr. We all share the bloodlines of the Great Charter.”

“This is my task, Sabriel.”

“Why? Why does it have to be only yours? Surely you can’t cut your hands open every day, Touchstone! Let me help you. Let me share it!”

“Like you share your tasks with me?” he asked her, and it sounded almost like an accusation.

“That isn’t fair,” she said. “You cannot come into Death with me, and you know it. You are not Abhorsen.”

“I needn’t come into Death to help you, Sabriel, if you would only let me,” he said quietly.

“You have helped me!” she insisted. “Have you forgotten everything we did together? I never would have survived without you. Much less defeated Kerrigor!”

“I haven’t forgotten,” Touchstone said, looking at her closely. “But I wondered if you had.”

She closed her eyes a moment, willing herself not to cry. _I am Abhorsen. I am not a schoolgirl._ “Please don’t do this, Touchstone,” she said. “I understand if you feel you must repair the Stones on your own. I only offered to help because I can right now. And because it hurts me when you hurt. Just as I know it hurts you when I hurt. Tomorrow, I could be called away to anywhere, and then I couldn’t help you. Just as you cannot come with me if I am called away because you are needed here. I have the Dead to bind and send away. You have a kingdom to rule. It doesn’t mean we don’t want to help each other or that we don’t know how to. It’s only that, too often . . .we can’t. Not when each of us has our own responsibilities to so many.”

“The Stones are my responsibility to mend because it was my bloodline that broke them, not yours,” Touchstone said softly, but with an air of finality. “And you are right that we have responsibilities that will part us at times, but you are here now, Sabriel. And I don’t want to spend whatever time you are here arguing with you.”

“I don’t want that, either.” She sighed. “Promise me you will be careful, though. With the Stones. Don’t push yourself too hard, Touchstone. You are too important.”

“To the kingdom?”

“Yes.” He still looked at her expectantly, and she relented. “And to me,” she said.

He smiled at her, and she felt warm all over. She wondered vaguely how she’d managed to be warm at all for the past two months without that smile.

“There is something I would like to discuss with you of a fairly serious nature,” he said. “Several of the visiting lords have indicated that it simply isn’t acceptable to have the Old Kingdom ruled over by a man of questionable lineage thought of by many simply as the Bastard Prince.”

“You are the King!” Sabriel declared vehemently, rising to her feet in agitation. “The Clayr have seen it, and I can testify to your imprisonment in Holehallow myself! Who would these fools put on the throne in your place?”

“No one,” he said, smiling up at her, obviously enjoying her anger on his behalf. “They simply feel I should formally be made King. With a big, fancy coronation--all the pomp and ritual and a crown and everything.”

“Oh.” Sabriel looked at him, and then smiled herself. “Well, I think that’s very good idea. You deserve a coronation, Touchstone. And barring large numbers of mordicants running amok through villages, I promise to be on the front row.”

“Actually,” Touchstone said, rising to come stand in front of her. “I had another place in mind for you.” He took a deep breath and looked almost afraid, but he took her hand and said, “I would have you by my side. I would have you be my Queen, Sabriel, if you would consider it.”

She couldn’t breathe. She wasn’t certain she’d heard him correctly. He’d just agreed with her that they would forever be pulled in different directions. Why would he ask her this? Why would he force her to tell him no?

She shook her head, slowly at first, and then more quickly as she pulled her hand from his and backed away from him. “I can’t,” she whispered. “You know I can’t.”

“You know I love you,” he told her. “You told me once you thought you might love me. Since then, I thought perhaps . . .If you don’t love me, Sabriel, tell me now.”

He kept his eyes on hers. She wished he would look away. Perhaps she could lie to him if he’d only look away, but he wouldn’t, and his gaze held her eyes on his as if he had cast a spell on her, freezing her in place. “I do,” she whispered, barely audibly. “I love you. I think maybe I always have.”

His face seemed nearly to glow at her words and his smile was the brightest she’d ever seen. This smile didn’t fill her with warmth, though. It filled her with regret for the joy that he shouldn’t feel, that she couldn’t feel, that they couldn’t share.

“It doesn’t matter,” she said. “I cannot be a queen. I am the Abhorsen.”

“Of course you are the Abhorsen. What does that have to do with anything?”

She looked at him incredulously. “What does that have to do with anything? Touchstone, you are the King. Your place is here in Belisaere, or wherever you’re needed in the service of the kingdom. My place is . . .”

“Here,” he interrupted. “By my side in Belisaere. Or wherever you’re needed in the service of the kingdom.”

“It isn’t the same,” she insisted, irritated at his using her own words back at her. “The people who expect you to have a proper coronation will also expect you to have a proper queen. Edrin told me they’re already throwing their daughters at you!”

“Edrin talks too much,” Touchstone said, scowling. “Did he happen to mention that I’ve been throwing those daughters back?”

“You aren’t funny, Touchstone.”

“I don’t mean to be. I don’t want some other queen, Sabriel. I want you.”

“It isn’t about what we want! It never has been. You are King. I am Abhorsen. And we can’t just keep pretending that doesn’t matter.” He simply looked at her as if waiting for her to say more. “The path chooses the walker, Touchstone! You know that!”

“Do I?” he said quietly. “I’ve heard you pose the question before. Does the walker choose the path, or the path the walker? Knowing the question doesn’t mean I know the answer.”

“Touchstone,” she started to say, wishing she could say anything other than what she must. Her mind took her back suddenly to that terrible day at Wyverly College when he’d told her to run south and live a normal life. She’d told him she couldn’t, of course. She was the Abhorsen. But she’d also asked how he could run with her with his broken leg. She wondered now, if his leg hadn’t been broken, would she have been tempted to run with him?

“Sabriel,” he said, his voice with an almost commanding note in it. “Listen to what I have to say. There is truth in your words. I am King and you are Abhorsen. These paths were laid before us and have chosen us, and we cannot turn our backs to them. We will not turn our backs to them.”

 _I would have been tempted,_ she thought. _But I would not have run. Neither would he. We both would have stayed and fought whatever happened._

Touchstone was still speaking. “But that doesn’t mean we have no choices at all. We can still choose each other. We can be King and Abhorsen and still belong to each other. I cannot ask you to be anything other than what you are and you cannot ask it of me, either, but that doesn’t mean we cannot love each other.”

He made it sound so reasonable. So possible. She wanted so much to believe him. She didn’t want to be afraid. “I do love you,” she said softly, finding the words easier to say this time. “But how can I be your wife, your queen, when I must leave you whenever I am called?” She laughed almost hysterically. “I can’t even promise to be here for your coronation!”

“Then I shall be crowned without you and we’ll hold your coronation when you get back. And if anyone complains about it, I shall simply point out they are being treated to two coronation balls instead of one so they should be thanking me instead.”

“There’s never been an Abhorsen Queen, has there?” she asked him in a small voice, afraid to give too much life to the hope blooming in her chest.

“There’s never been a two hundred year old Bastard King,” Touchstone countered. “We might as well break all the traditions. Besides, I can’t believe there has ever been anyone like you at all before, Sabriel. You will be an Abhorsen like no other in any case. You might as well be Queen, too.”

Her laughter then was genuine, and he put his hands on her waist. She didn’t move away and put her own hands on the sides of his face. “Do you really think we can do this?”

“I think you can do anything.”

She smiled at him. “I think that about you.”

“Well, then we’d be fools not to get married.” He smiled as he said that, but then he looked at her with great seriousness again. “I may bear a fool’s name, Sabriel, but I am not fool. The path ahead of us is not easy. We both have responsibilities to a kingdom that’s been falling ever deeper into anarchy for two centuries. The Dead have grown used to walking back into Life almost without impediment, and the living have grown used to having no government at all. Nothing about our paths is simple whether we marry or not. But, I know I’ll fear my path less if I have you to walk beside me even part of the time.”

“I’m still afraid,” she said. “When I brought my father out of Death, he told me that he wasn’t an ideal parent. That none of us are. That when we become Abhorsen we lose much else.” She looked at him desperately. “I don’t want to love you only to lose you, Touchstone. I don’t want you to resent me for all the other people I must put before you or myself or any children we might have in spite of how much I love you.”

He sighed. “I won’t like it when you have to be gone from me, especially when you are gone as long as you have been this time. But I could never resent you. I know what it means to be Abhorsen. I understand you, Sabriel. And I love you. You will not lose me until my own death, and even then I will love you.” He smiled at her. “You battle enemies in Death, my brave, beautiful lady. You never let fear keep you from walking there. Don’t let it keep you from walking in life or love.”

“I do love you, Touchstone,” she said, and the words came from her lips easily, firmly, with no hesitation at all.

“Then be my wife. Be my Abhorsen Queen. Will you marry me, Sabriel?”

“Yes,” she told him simply, and then she put her lips to his and spoke no more. 

As Touchstone returned her kiss, she could feel his love banishing her fears as surely as her bells could send away the Dead, and she allowed herself to believe that not time or distance or even death could ever truly part them.


End file.
